


there is a dark place (but i'm not going there)

by commonemergency



Series: ficmas 2017. [6]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Established Relationship, Family Feels, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-07
Updated: 2017-12-07
Packaged: 2019-02-11 15:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12937770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commonemergency/pseuds/commonemergency
Summary: and everything may not feel all normal yet but it's getting there.prompt: Dan on dark days during this past 8 years plus the help and love of the Lesters :)





	there is a dark place (but i'm not going there)

It’s 3:30am and Dan wakes up feeling uncomfortable. It’s too hot, and then it’s too cold, and then there’s this aching feeling in his bones that he can’t quite describe, his chest hurts and he feels empty. He takes a few deep breaths, tries to psyche himself up for the activities The Lester’s had plan for the morning, but honestly? He’d rather sink into the floorboards and not exist, at least until this feeling passes. He feels anxious about it. 

Phil is asleep next to him. Dan gets up and grabs his phone and looks out the window to see a foggy landscape. He tiptoes out the door, trying not to make a sound, tensing up when he hears a crack. Dan isn’t familiar with the house, in many ways he missed the old house, he knew his way around, knew where each board would make a sound, but Isle of Man was beautiful in a lot of ways. 

He finds himself in the kitchen, thinking that maybe if he drank enough water the unsettled feeling would go away, and then when his water is gone, he doesn’t know what to do. He can’t pace like he could back home, he can’t go for a walk because of how late it is, he can’t really watch the telly because five people were asleep, and the thought of looking through his social media would make him feel worse. 

Dan knows he can wake Phil up, but he doesn’t want to do that. He’s worked so hard to not go through this journey alone but there’s still that feeling that he’s burdening people, so he doesn’t. Instead he uses his phone flashlight and finds his way to the living room to sit on the couch grabbing the blanket and wrapping it around him as a cape. In his head it’s magical and can ward off the evil. He sits in silence for a while, his eyes looking out the window into the dark fog, it feels so familiar to what’s happening inside his mind. 

There’s a sound coming from the stairs, Dan feels his heart beat fast, not that he couldn’t be down here, but knowing how awkward it would be. He thought that he wasn’t being that loud but he might have been wrong. Dan sinks into the blanket as much as he can trying not to make a sound. Whoever it is- they’re opening the fridge from what Dan can tell and Dan wants to peek but that would require him to move. 

He thinks that if he can just sit still for a couple more minutes they’ll be gone. Except, his plan falls through when the light turns on, and he sees Kathryn. She looks quite surprised seeing Dan wrapped in a blanket sitting on a couch staring at nothing. 

He smiles awkwardly, raising a hand as if to say hi. 

“What are you doing up?” she talks low, and with a tired smile, from what Dan can see she’s holding a bowl of cereal and Dan suddenly realizes where Phil gets it from. He wants to comment on it but- talking, and he doesn’t want to talk, or interact, it’s already so much, he feels so exposed even if she doesn’t understand what’s happening. 

“I couldn’t sleep.” He says with a small smile, wrapping the blanket around him more. 

“Me neither. Cereal?” She offers it to him and he shakes his head. 

“No, I’m okay, thank you.” It’s not that he hasn’t had a conversation with Phil’s mum before, there had been many times when Dan had done the dishes with Kathryn while Phil was taking a shower -- she’s known the boy for eight years, this wasn’t any unusual, but he’s never really talked to her when he was feeling like this. It felt overwhelming now like it was too much for him, he just wanted to evaporate, save her the trouble of trying to talk to someone who felt completely lifeless at the moment, because he really couldn’t offer much conversation.

Maybe she understood it -- call it motherly instincts, but she sits next to him, quietly, not saying anything while she starts to eat her cereal. She must know, Phil talks to her about everything, and it wasn’t a secret anymore it’s just there was a line that people don’t tend cross because depression is a taboo thing to talk about it, and maybe they thought it would be rude -- he didn’t know but he didn’t want to unload all of it on her, not that he would even know what to say anyway.

“Long day?” She eventually asks, smiling at him and he shrugs. 

“I guess. It was fun, but also -- I don’t know.” 

“Well, I’m going to eat my cereal and read my Kindle and we can just enjoy each other’s silence.” She pats his cheek with her hand and finishes what’s left in her bowl, placing it on the coffee table and grabs the Kindle from there as well turning it on. 

Dan rests his head on the end of the couch away from her, it’s a good temporary pillow, and it’s not as awkward as he thought it would be. She reacts the same way Phil does when he’s really into a book and it’s nice to have that warm feeling- the kind of feeling that you get when you’re around the people that you like. 

*  
Dan eventually falls asleep but is awoken to an early morning with the birds chirping outside and an extra blanket on top of him with a glass of water on the coffee table waiting for him. The only reminder that Kathryn was there is the Kindle laying by Dan’s feet which are now on the couch. He doesn’t know if he had moved them onto the couch himself or if she did it for him- either way he gets up and quietly goes back to bed next to Phil who’s still asleep. 

When Dan gets in bed he looks at Phil who looks peaceful, he reaches out to touch the hairs that are covering over his eyes and he pushes them back while his fingers gently glide across his cheeks, and then curve around his nose. Sometimes Dan felt like he wasn’t even real, like he was just in this body that existed but he wasn’t really living; everything felt very fake and light like he wasn’t here, and the only real way for him to know was to feel another person, and that person was Phil. He had chained him down and he didn’t even know it. 

Though the sudden movement wakes Phil up and he looks at Dan and he’s sleepy, but he reaches out for him and Dan gets closer. Phil had always described Dan as warm but Dan would like to disagree. Phil felt like the best kind of blanket, the one that you could get lost in for a few hours and feel completely content. 

Dan felt like his world would implode sometimes, things would stack up to a point where he felt like he couldn’t control it, and he knew that if he just tried to claw his way out he could get there, it just took a little time to get to the light, and Phil was a patient lover, because he had come from a family that was also incredible and warm. He could do this. 

“I’m sorry.” Dan said into Phil’s chest, it was muffled and he wasn’t even sure if Phil could hear him or understand. 

He felt Phil’s gentle squeeze, and then a yawn. “It’s okay, Dan.” 

Dan sometimes wished he could shrink so that he wasn’t the tallest out of the two, but there were moments like this, where it felt perfect. Right.

“I heard you leave, I knew you’d come back.” 

“Go back to sleep Phil.” Dan smiles into his chest.

“Okay,” Phil says, although he’s almost there already, but not before he mumbles, “Love you.” 

Dan thinks, _I love you too._

And when they wake up again, Phil has his computer out and he’s waited for Dan to wake up. Phil doesn’t have to say anything, he rests his hand on top of Dan’s head, fingers playing with his hair a little and he smiles gently at him. They might not do anything today, and that’s okay too, because Phil understands. 

“My mum checked in on us and made a cup of tea for you, it’s cold now but I can heat it up for you.” 

Dan gets up from bed, grabbing the tea and he walks down the stairs and there’s laughter in the kitchen and the smell of bacon and eggs fill his nostrils, he says a quick good morning to everyone who say good morning back and he hugs Kathryn who hugs him back, and she may not have done much but just offer him her silence last night, an extra blanket and a cup of water, but sometimes that was everything, and that was enough. 

“Thank you for the tea.” He says pulling away, hoping that she understands that he also means, _thank you for being there, thank you for accepting me into your home and trusting that I could love your son, thank you for everything that you may not understand but try to anyway._

“No problem, dear.” She pats his cheek again, and Phil’s father offers sugar cubes for his tea since she’s been known to make it strong. 

When Phil comes in, he squeezes his mum’s shoulder but makes a beeline for the bacon, and everything may not feel all normal yet but it’s getting there.

**Author's Note:**

> comments/kudos appreciated!
> 
> talk to me on tumblr/twitter: **@nihilismdan**
> 
> if you want a prompt you can leave one anonymously (or not) to me [here.](http://nihilismdan.tumblr.com/post/168052851358/i-really-would-love-to-do-ficmas-in-someway-but-i)


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